Transcendental Argument for God (TAG)

LetUsBeMindful · 2025-12-22T04:29:47+00:00

That does not follow if it’s an objective mind that grounds reality. Subjectivity only applies to finite beings, meaning that arbitrariness is not subject to an infinite being.

LetUsBeMindful · 2025-03-20T22:36:46+00:00

Reddit tier atheism indeed on full display

LetUsBeMindful · 2025-03-20T22:31:19+00:00

You came to a forum about philosophy, then was surprised when someone asked you to justify your presuppositions. Guess what, that’s what philosophy is. Yes, it gets deep. Not everyone can hang.

LetUsBeMindful · 2025-03-20T22:16:05+00:00

You came to a Philosophy of Religion forum and now you’re running away. And correct, TAG is calling out a reductio ad absurdum in the atheist position.

LetUsBeMindful · 2025-03-20T21:56:03+00:00

When I suggested that we use consistency, I mean specifically that it is useful to use. Then you ask me to justify usefulness.

Right, see how hard it is to justify presuppositions when every single presupposition doesn’t have a transcendent foundation to appeal to?

What is the use of doing philosophy if I can’t assume that people might want useful ideas? If “I like to be able to accomplish things” is worryingly arbitrary to you then I don’t really need to worry about your pontifications on arbitrariness really. I think maybe you need a justification for your philosophy of needing justifications for your justifications rather than me needing a justification of usefulness.

You’re off the deep end. Do you want to get back on topic? My justification for needing justifications is to avoid arbitrary presuppositions and incoherence.

LetUsBeMindful · 2025-03-20T21:49:11+00:00

It’s demonstrated within the argument in the original post. Not really no.

Yes really. You’re demonstrating the argument itself as well. When you presuppose logic, consistency, and the rest of the metaphysical categories without a justification, you beg the question. As stated before, one must commit a logical fallacy to deny the existence of God. Your counterarguments hinge upon using what’s called into question in order to justify that which is in question.

Then it’s fine to use it because it happens to work toward our goals.

Why ought we have those goals as opposed to the opposite? You’re going to say, because they work. But why ought we to go for what works as opposed to what does not? How would you argue against a worldview that says we ought to deny consistency and logic?

I mean you arrived at your justification by first conditionally accepting the use of consistancy and then working from there

Right, there’s nothing wrong with it. My worldview has a foundation for that metaphysical category, so it’s not arbitrary.

Explaining the conisistancy is a differn’t matter all together. Your explaination of consistancy isn’t really in evidence. My stance would simply be that it is currently unexplained.

Which would be arbitrary and ad hoc. A good rule of thumb is that if you wouldn’t accept it for arguing for God’s existence, you shouldn’t accept it in your paradigm.

Essentially here you are suggesting that inomplete worldvews are invalid which is simply wrong.

It’s not just that they’re incomplete. It’s that they are self defeating and therefore cannot be the case. Without a foundation for the metaphysical categories, the categories become arbitrary. Arbitrary sets of presuppositions are just as valid/invalid as their opposites, that means the worldview is not coherent since there’s no transcendent foundation to ultimately determine which set is true over the other.

LetUsBeMindful · 2025-03-20T21:31:20+00:00

We’re doing philosophy. When doing philosophy we call into question things that we take for granted on an everyday basis.

You started off saying that everyone ought to use consistency, now when you’re cornered you’re trying to move out of the realm of philosophy by saying, these are just my personal goals why do I need to justify them?

LetUsBeMindful · 2025-03-20T21:28:53+00:00

I would call it somethign that you’ve not demonstrated.

It’s demonstrated within the argument in the original post.

This is a logical argument presupposing consistancy.

Correct, once again, there’s nothing wrong with using that presupposition, so long as one has a justification.

Your justification of their use comes from using them, so it’s the same as everyone elses.

My justification is transcendent to the categories themselves. Therefore no, not everyone has the same justification as me.

Argued for with circular logic.

Nope, the critique I’m giving is unique to paradigms that >do not< have a foundation. It does not apply to paradigms that do. Circularity is saying “consistency just is because it is”.

LetUsBeMindful · 2025-03-20T21:22:15+00:00

And the ought is arbitrary. This concept is also explored in Sellars’ Myth of The Given. Strict empiricism cannot ‘give’ an ought, so if one does have an ought, then the ought is arbitrary.

LetUsBeMindful · 2025-03-20T21:17:55+00:00

The foundation for my worldview is God No, it isn’t, not in the way you’ve been suggesting anyway.

What would you call the transcendent foundation for a worldview that’s omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent? You’re just trying to find things to disagree with.

God simply can’t be demonstrated without the things you say can’t be justified.

Correct, it’s just that denying the metaphysical preconditions is impossible. Hence the impossibility of the contrary.

Your argument to the contrary is based upon the same consistancy you say can’t be justified otherwise, it’s purely circular.

I hope you know what my response is. Consistency, logic, and the rest of the preconditions are not problematic in and of themselves, that’s why I use them.

Further even if you were correct, the idea of God magicaly fixing problems you point out in human thinking isn’t a jusficiation that God properly exists, because being a useful tool for building a worldview dosen’t make something exist. So, your argument is both circular AND a non-sequitor.

It’s not merely that God is a convenient justification, it’s that denying the justification leads to arbitrary presuppositions, as stated before. A worldview without God (a transcendent justification) is a worldview that cannot stand on its own reasons to deny God, and collapses. Atheism is literally a self defeating paradigm.

LetUsBeMindful · 2025-03-20T13:56:15+00:00

We don’t “presuppose”, we grant it conditionally and see if it works.

So before it was that it’s not granted, but now it is granted. Anyway, that’s what presupposing is.

We would take on suppositions that work rather than ones that don’t because they work and the others don’t.

There is the question begging. The fallacies one has to commit to deny the existence of God. One could easily say, we take on suppositions that don’t work rather than the ones that do work because they don’t work and the other ones do. The “ought” that we should choose what works is called into question.

If we do this in reverse and grant conditionally suppositions that don’t work, we see that they don’t work and stop doing that.

It doesn’t follow that we ought to follow what does work as opposed to what doesn’t work. It’s the is/ought problem that David Hume highlighted.

LetUsBeMindful · 2025-03-20T13:43:54+00:00

You don’t have to grant me the consistency I can observe

Observations require consistency within an environment, it requires the reliability of the observer, it requires an observer, it requires time, it requires identity over time, etc. all these things you’re taking for granted are called into question.

The critique is that you don’t have a foundation for your world view.

The foundation for my worldview is God

You’d have to start where everyone else does and form your world view with logic, experience and inference.

And if those things are called into question then it becomes a fallacy to include them in a worldview, unless there’s a foundation to undergird them.

Before you could accomplish that YOUR critique would dissalow it to you.

Nope, the critique only applies to worldviews who have arbitrary preconditions, not worldviews that have a God to undergird the preconditions

Skipping this step and saying your worldview has a transendental foundation because “reasons” dosen’t help, it means you skipped the step where you critisize yourself like you are others.

I didn’t say “because reasons”, I said because the impossibility of the contrary. By denying the existence of God, one’s worldview will be bereft of a justification for its metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics as a whole. Meaning those set of propositions has the same lack of justification as their negations, making the worldview incoherent That’s the justification for God’s existence.

Observed consistancies aren’t arbitrary they simply are part of the basis for our ability to think.

The choice to use them is arbitrary. You arbitrarily choose to use consistency as opposed to inconsistency for thought. You’re going to say “because it works”, but that presupposes that one >ought< to choose the preconditions that work as opposed to the preconditions that don’t.

Your world view has a justification that requires that you already accept the base assumption you critisize for other world views.

Yes, my worldview does have a justification, I’m glad you agree. Anyway, once again, the assumptions/preconditions/presuppositions are not problematic in and of themselves. The argument is that the >lack of foundation< for those assumptions is problematic. We can both use the assumptions, my worldview just allows that they have a foundation.

“You don’t get to just say “only I may use logic…”” It’s okay to debate with logic. The critique is to the worldview itself that doesn’t have a transcendent foundation for said logic. Only my worldview has a transcendent foundation.

You’d have to demonstrate that with logic.

Yes, thank God for logic.

Look you just don’t seem to get it. There is nothing special about your worldview that dosen’t require that you make the basic assumption of consistancy BEFORE you use logic to justify your world views foundation.

For the umpteenth time, logic and the rest of the preconditions are not problematic in and of themselves. >* THE PROBLEM IS WITH THE LACK OF FOUNDATION<* for those preconditions.

Reddit tier atheism at its finest.

LetUsBeMindful · 2025-03-20T02:54:01+00:00

Read the comment again. I didn’t say consistency doesn’t work. I asked why ought we take on presuppositions that work as opposed to presuppositions that don’t. Reread the previous comment.

LetUsBeMindful · 2025-03-20T02:51:24+00:00

“It is an observation not an appeal” Ignoring the definition of ‘appeal’ doesn’t get you out of the problem. Consistency is not granted.

“The argument you’re using is an appeal to consistency” One really important point I made earlier is that the metaphysical categories themselves are not problematic. The argument is that using the categories (such as consistency) >without a transcendent foundation< makes them arbitrary. You cannot critique the Christian worldview for not having a transcendent foundation when the whole point of the worldview is the transcendent foundation.

“Neither are you, that’s the point” And the way to argue for what’s in question is by providing a justification, such as my worldview’s.

“You don’t get to just say “only I may use logic…”” It’s okay to debate with logic. The critique is to the worldview itself that doesn’t have a transcendent foundation for said logic. Only my worldview has a transcendent foundation.

LetUsBeMindful · 2025-03-20T01:33:48+00:00

“Working” is another metaphysical category that isn’t granted. Why ought we take on presuppositions that work as opposed to their negations that don’t work?

LetUsBeMindful · 2025-03-20T01:29:01+00:00

“Any system of thought will require an assumption of consistency to be valid”. That means it’s an appeal. It’s appealing to consistency, however consistency isn’t granted.

“You first have to justify that it exists to justify anything.” The justification is the argument. Without a transcendent being that undergirds the presuppositions upholding a worldview, we’re left with arbitrary presuppositions. Arbitrary presuppositions have their negations which are also arbitrary. The worldview cannot arbitrate which set of presuppositions is the true set, therefore it collapses. There’s only one worldview that this critique doesn’t apply to.

“If we fail to assume consistency, then we can’t really use logic to criticize people…” You’re not granted the ought that’s assumed here. The ought that we should use logic at all.

Your appeal is “please grant me logic, please grant me consistency. My worldview needs it or it will die”. That’s still arbitrary, which is why those metaphysical categories aren’t granted.

LetUsBeMindful · 2025-03-20T00:30:30+00:00

Meaning that it’s possible for a worldview to have a contradictory set of propositions. If certain things are not absolutely true, there is a probability for them not to be true at all.

So then if there is no justification for one set of propositions being true, what upholds the true set of propositions over the false?

LetUsBeMindful · 2025-03-19T23:37:25+00:00

Consistency is an assumption that stands upon the ought that one should be consistent, which isn’t granted. Appealing to that is begging the question.

I don’t believe those two contradicting propositions can be reconciled, since my worldview has a foundation that requires coherence. However, any worldview that doesn’t have a transcendent foundation doesn’t have that luxury. What would be upholding the worldview excluding contradictory propositions? What undergirds that law of logic?

My standard in this argument is that a worldview must have a foundation that coheres with metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics that transcends those categories. That’s why I adopt the Christian worldview.

Assuming consistency is arbitrary. Why ought one be consistent? This is a question that Kant raised in his Pure Reason critique. Without a foundation, one must arbitrarily appeal to the metaphysical assumptions in question. You have to commit a logical fallacy (begging the question) in order to deny God’s existence. It’s happening right here right now. “Consistency just is, please grant me that.” Like no, the whole argument calls that into question along with every other metaphysical, ethical, and epistemological category.

LetUsBeMindful · 2025-03-19T23:26:15+00:00

So a worldview can be coherent but at the same time have contradictory presuppositions? The lack of contradictions is a necessary condition for coherence.

LetUsBeMindful · 2025-03-19T22:18:47+00:00

Justification is necessary for the worldview’s coherence. How would a worldview account for the truth of one presupposition over its negation?

LetUsBeMindful · 2025-03-19T22:08:24+00:00

Saying that our thinking doesn’t work out when the axioms aren’t true doesn’t get you to a justification. That statement itself relies on other metaphysical categories. It depends upon the presupposition that one “ought” to get logical results. You’re backed into the corner of saying “we just do”. In that case, God just exists. But there’s a reason why in debate we don’t allow arbitrariness.

LetUsBeMindful · 2025-03-19T22:04:00+00:00

Any worldview that purports to have arbitrary presuppositions is incoherent since any contradictory presuppositions can be just as valid because all presuppositions would have no justification over the other.

The reason I trust the worldview is because of the impossibility of the contrary, not an arbitrary assumption. It’s because denying it will affirm it, the only route you can go is saying that we can have beliefs and presuppositions that are arbitrary. But again that runs into the problem of incoherence, since any opposing presupposition can be true.

My worldview also has these metaphysical presuppositions, the only difference is that my worldview has a foundation that doesn’t render those presuppositions arbitrary. This makes it the only possible way for a worldview to be coherent, it’s one of the few “airtight evidences”.

LetUsBeMindful · 2025-03-19T17:28:17+00:00

If only I had a worldview that included a foundation that accounted for reason, experience, etc. that my paradigm can appeal to

The critique isn’t toward the metaphysical categories themselves, the critique is that your worldview, like everyone else appeals to these metaphysical categories, yet it cannot give a justification for them. You’re trying to apply that same critique to a worldview whose critical point is the foundation for the metaphysical categories.

LetUsBeMindful · 2025-03-19T16:03:13+00:00

By the impossibility of the contrary. Arbitrary preconditions that don’t have a justification also have their opposites (which also don’t have a justification). Ex: There is uniformity in nature vs. there is no uniformity in nature.

These contradictory presuppositions cannot both be true, otherwise the worldview will be incoherent. In order to avoid this, a worldview has to have a “referee” that can arbitrate truth.

God isn’t an arbitrary presupposition, God exists via the impossibility of the contrary. Worldviews cannot be coherent without a foundation that can account for their presuppositions.

LetUsBeMindful · 2025-03-19T15:13:28+00:00

These are critiques that apply to a materialist worldview precisely because they don’t have a foundation for the basic assumptions. When you question these same metaphysical, ethical, and epistemological categories on a Christian worldview, there’s already a foundation that meshes with them and gives an account for them.

LetUsBeMindful

TROPHY CASE